The Way Things Are
by prouvaires
Summary: -a picture of a person as a child and a picture of them as an adult can make them seem like two different people with a thousand years between them-


Take a picture of a person as a child, and a picture of them as an adult. It's an easy thing to do. Look at both and see how the person's changed, if they've changed at all. But if you can pick the right moments, you can make them seem like they're two different people, living lifetimes apart.

With Carlisle, it's easy to do. The first snapshot, taken when he's still human, six, maybe seven (people didn't keep time as well when he was young), shows a little blonde boy, staring up with feverishly devoted brown eyes at a huge wooden cross hanging above a stone pulpit in a sombre church. His lips are moving, soundlessly muttering a prayer or a promise or his love for his god.

But then the second snapshot shows him older, harder, more careworn. He's a vampire now, but his troubles show in the crease of his brow, the way he angles his body to move at any signal from his adopted children that he's needed. He's staring at the cross again, now hung on a white wall in a modern house, but this time his now golden eyes are dark, tired, wise. He's learned things that little boy of six could never have imagined, and some of them hurt him inside constantly.

Esme's harder. She hasn't changed too much. The first picture shows a young woman, pregnant, folded protectively over the curve of her belly. Her caramel-coloured hair falls on either side of her face like soft curtains, and her eyes shine with love, devotion, pride. She can't believe she's going to have a child, and she's thanking God for every movement inside her that proves she's going to be a mother.

The second shows her looking almost the same. She's paler, thinner, and there is no evidence of the pregnancy that once made her feel like she was the happiest person alive. She's standing in a doorway, a beautiful blonde man behind her, one hand resting lightly on her waist. She's watching the young man in the room, sitting alone, playing the piano. Her eyes are lit with care and concern for him, but somewhere deep behind the gold of her irises and the worry for her adopted son there lurks a terrible agony that rises at the memory of the child she lost.

Edward's not as easy. As a child he's happy, nothing more. His mother adores him, his father's indifferent to him. He's sitting at the side of the road, aged fourteen, watching with desperate admiration as lines of soldiers pass by him, rifles slung over their shoulders, an no-one has any inkling that soon two-thirds of the brave young men will lie buried under mud, forgotten in the tragedy that is war. Edward doesn't know. He wants to be like them, to be brave and strong and good, to fight for those he loves.

The second picture of him shows a bronze-haired young man, frozen forever at seventeen. His lips are drawn back over dangerously sharp teeth, snarling soundlessly as he closes in on the man in front of him, who's beating a girl about Edward's age, with no idea of the death that awaits him in just seconds. Edward's eyes are red, feral, uncontrollable. His movements are judged to perfection, his footsteps noiseless. He feels regret for the act of killing, but not for the death of the man, and feels nothing but pleasure as he sinks his teeth into the man's neck and watches him die.

Bella, she's easy too. The first picture is of an awkward young girl, aged eight. Her long brown hair is drawn back into two pigtails, and she's lying on the ground. She's just tripped over something (her feet, probably) and two older girls are emptying her book bag over her head, taunting her. She does nothing to defend herself, just closes up and lets them bully her until they get bored and leave. She feels alone. She has her mother, yes, but that relationship is complicated. She feels she needs someone who'll always be there, to protect her.

But in the second picture, she's older too. She's eighteen, but she's been alive a lot longer than that. She's got her arm around the waist of a handsome young man, with tousled bronze hair, and she's watching a pretty young girl walking slightly ahead of them, who has long brown hair and contempt for her mother's protectiveness. Bella squeezes Edward slightly, because even though she doesn't need protection any more, she likes to be reminded that she's not alone, and never will be.

Rosalie's hard. She hasn't changed much. The first snapshot is her, aged maybe ten or eleven. Her golden hair is pinned back from her face, and she's smiling at her beautiful reflection in the mirror. Her face is happy, innocent, naïve. She's content with her life. She has her beauty, which will find her a husband and an income, and she'll be safe forever.

The second snapshot shows her older, nineteen perhaps. She's a vampire now, and staring at her reflection in the mirror again. It's even more perfect now, and she smiles slightly as she thinks of the countless men rendered speechless by the very sight of her. What has changed about her lies beneath the surface. There's a constant aching for the child she will never have, and a niggling pain that comes from the betrayal of the man she was supposed to marry.

Emmett's harder even than Rosalie. He's the same person, more or less. The first picture shows him as a child, aged four. He's romping fearlessly around a large garden with a dog that's more bear than anything else. The dog has its teeth slightly bared with enjoyment of the game, but Emmett ignores the pain when the dog's teeth catch his skin and wrestles with him in the spring sunshine.

In the second picture he's again wrestling, this time with a real bear. There's a fearsome light of vengeance in his golden eyes, and he ignores the sound of the bear's claws ripping at his marble-hard skin. He's still happy with life, totally fearless, up for anything that sounds like fun.

Jasper, he's easy. In the first, he's a young child, ten or eleven maybe. He's sitting astride a huge chestnut stallion, his legs gripping tightly onto its sides and his fingers tangled in its mane. He's laughing with the fiery thrill of feeling the power of the huge beast coursing through him, and imagining the day when he can ride into battle with an army behind him, ready to take back what belongs to his country.

The second picture shows him an adult, in his twenties. He's wandering alone, bereft of friendship, guidance, love. He's left the ones who turned him and become a nomad. He meets others occasionally, and falls in with them for a while. But the sight of them killing with such pleasure takes the heart out of him, and he turns away with a world-weary sigh. He still remembers feeling the strength of the stallion and wishing for war, and laughs at himself with tired cynicism, envious of the boy he used to be.

Alice is easy too. In the first, she's totally alone. She's around twelve. She's curled up on a hard mattress in a tiny cell, with almost no light. Her dark eyes are gazing sightlessly up at the window high above, her long, matted hair tangled around her. She has nothing. No-one to love her, no-one to miss her, no-one to get her out. She can feel something, a premonition, that her life will not always be like this, this fireless hell. She knows something better is coming, but she doesn't know if she'll last the wait.

In the second, she's changed. She laughing with a blonde man who speaks with a southern drawl, and her eyes are lit up with love and happiness. Her hair is cut short, her clothes expertly tailored, and she rests her hand on the man's chest and gazes into his eyes. She feels no sense of something better to come because she's found everything she never thought she'd get. She's totally content, totally happy.

**I hope you liked it. Please don't favourite without leaving a review.**


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